Newspaper saving Kindle coming this Wednesday

You may have read, perhaps in a newspaper, that newspapers are hurting. Dying, some might say.

But can a portable gadget save the day? That’s what we’re about to find out, when Amazon unveils on Wednesday what many believe will be a larger Kindle book reader aimed at delivering newspaper, magazine and possibly text-book content.

The hope is that a bigger device that delivers up full-sized pages will be able to replace our old printed publications. And provided people pay for a monthly subscription the way they do for newspapers and magazines, this might become a savior of sorts.

The new Kindle, said to be backed by the New York Times, is not the only device in the works. The Chronicle’s parent company Hearst, News Corp. and Plastic Logic are also working on big-screen readers.

But as much as I wanna believe that technology can save the newspapers they helped endanger, I’m not convinced at this point that a new Kindle or these devices can get the job done. Having a device that delivers your newspaper or magazine without having to deal with print is nice but who would it play to and more importantly, how much actual money would the publications realize from it?

As they are envisioned now, these readers would be print replacements, offering a generally static view of the same things you find in the print edition. But you would still pay a subscription for that. For the New York Times on Kindle 2, you gotta pay $14 a month.

Here’s my problem, I don’t see how this alone adds a whole bunch to the bottom line of these print publications. The first people to buy one of these devices to get their newspapers or magazines would, I’m guessing, be existing print subscribers, who are already paying and would just like the convenience of no paper. I have a hard time believing many people who now go online for the same content for free would spring for a $350 or more device to get the same news, only less frequently updated. (The Kindle 2 sells for $359 and updates its publications once a day)

Devices like the iPhone have shown people there is a good if not great experience reading articles on a portable device and the content is free and changing throughout the day. Just packaging up the print edition content and selling it on a more reading-friendly device doesn’t seem like enough to me.

The news business’ problem is more about getting people to value and pay for content, period. The delivery issue is part of our problem and can be part of the solution. But as long as there are free options available, something many people come to expect now, having a pricey gadget alone will only provided limited or no relief.

Now if our most trusted news publications were to charge for their content across the board, then a device like this might have more life. If everyone who wants to read the New York Times had to pay for it with one universal subscription, then I might consider a reading friendly and dedicated device. The cost of said device would need to come down considerably but it might make sense, especially if we could fold it and stow it away in a smaller size.

All this talk about newspapers and magazines might be obscuring the real value of such a reader. As many people have pointed out, such readers would make more sense going after the text book market. Again, just as in regular books for the Kindle, that’s stuff you can’t get for free.

Anyway, I want to believe that newspapers can survive in the digital world. I’ve got a vested interest in that. But we’ve still got a long ways to go and a pricey dedicated reader alone won’t change much, I fear. And with great multi-tasking devices out there (including a possible upcoming media tablet from Apple) that can get people the same content for free, it’ll be a hard proposition for readers. I could be wrong and I’m hopeful, for the industry’s sake, that I am. Stay tuned.